New Delhi: Mukul Madhav Foundation (MMF), the CSR arm of Finolex Industries Limited, launched its first ad film on Saturday, 11th November, as part of its Children’s Day initiative. Titled ‘Cup of Tea’, it is a three-minute short film that focuses on education and empowerment of rural India. With this, the foundation also launched their very first crowd-sourced campaign towards raising funds for RO Water Systems and other facilities for schools and villages in and around Maharashtra.

Lauding this initiative, Mrs. Ritu Chhabria, Director – Finolex Industries Ltd. and Managing Trustee – Mukul Madhav Foundation stated, “This is a big step for MMF as it is our first ad film and it strengthens the message of how education is the need of the hour for the children of our country. We have been fortunate enough to get donors to contribute towards the making of this film. We make an effort to communicate every small piece of work that the foundation does, but primarily, it is most important that people need to understand that MMF stands for education. And this was a good way to communicate it to the masses, as MMF is growing and has already provided educational assistance to over 1 lakh children.”

Directed by acclaimed filmmaker and theatre personality, Jitendra Rai of Matheno Films, ‘Cup of Tea’ has received the official selection and nomination in over 72 international film festivals and has already won 9 awards. This includes the 2nd best short film award at the #EduDocInternational Short Film Competition held recently at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. The film has garnered around 4 million views within 3 days on various media platforms.

On seeing the positive response his film has received, Jitendra Rai said, “The idea for this film came partially from my own personal experience. I come from a small village in Bihar, where education was not easily available, so we had to walk to school for several kilometres and back every day, which made it very difficult. Even now, the quality of education there hasn’t improved very much. Taking these experiences, I came up with the concept for this film and approached Mukul Madhav Foundation.They really liked the idea and decided to collaborate with us for the film and launch it on Children’s Day. We are delighted with the response the film has been receiving across the world so far, and the recognition at some of the finest film festivals.”

The release of this short film was accompanied by the launch of the first-ever crowd-funding campaign by Mukul Madhav Foundation. The campaign was launched on Ketto.org as a platform to raise funds of ₹15,00,000 in order to support schools in rural areas across Maharashtra.